It Takes Two
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [World 1/Next 0rder] Analogman escapes and the Digital World is frozen. Its saviour leaves and searches for a way to release it from its chains, but in doing so he's put an extra key into Analogman's hands - and he doesn't realise until it's almost too late. Or maybe it is too late.


**A/N:** For an Aiko! Because it's all her fault I watched Next 0rder and fell in love with it. :) We've also discussed conspiracy theories about them and some of them will be showcased here – and some new ones born. Oh well. Conspiracy theories are fun.

Written for

February Secret Multichap Advent Exchange, #001 – base  
The Epic Masterclass Challenge, #002 – the wild fanon  
Diversity Writing Challenge, k15 – write a fic entirely in first person present tense  
Chapter Set Boot Camp, #019 – 28 chapters  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Side-Quest #13 (a new gear) – write about replacing something  
Digimon World Dawn/Dusk Remake Challenge, Bronze Tournament

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 **It Takes Two  
** _Chapter 1 – Base_

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There's no need to worry, Jijimon tells me, but I can't not worry. I've failed and no-one says a word of blame. They don't even see it. They only congratulate me, reward me, and then send me off on my way and glitch, repeating the same lines over and over as though I'm trapped in a game and I haven't triggered the next event to move on from this.

I suppose I haven't, really, if this had been a game. I hadn't defeated the final boss if he appeared again, in that dark place: in Back Dimension. But I didn't defeat him there, either. He slipped away like a shadow and left the being hidden behind his shed skin behind – and did that mean that Machindramon wasn't the enemy after all but just the signature Analogman chose – or did it mean that the true Machindramon had slipped away from him once again.

But what can I do about it? I can comb the digital world from top to bottom and fight and fight and fight – but at the end of all of them, the Machindramon I thought I was fighting melts away and another face is revealed. We come out stronger for it, but we're still chasing our tails. And nobody can help when they believe Machindramon has fallen and I've got no proof they can grasp. They don't hear my explanations. They just congratulate me and then say their scripted lines and I'm sure, by now, I can write out the lines of every digimon I've met in this world and never again be surprised.

I don't understand it. It's like time has frozen and I'm the only one who can move. My partner no longer ages too. I know it; I've counted the days and the melons aren't supposed to last so long. It's time itself that has ceased to move because, otherwise, my partner would have died and been reborn many times over by now.

I don't understand, but at some point I have to accept I'm accomplishing nothing by staying here.

There's a Digital Dive now. It's the way back to the human world and it was made for me: my reward. I can come and go as I please through it, or so I was promised by Jijimon. A part of me doesn't want to leave though. Maybe I'm afraid the world will shut before me and Machindramon and Analogman will crawl out of where they've been hiding and all the blood and sweat and tears I poured into it will have meant absolutely nothing and I can't stand that.

Aren't I at the age where time is frivolous and things are often done and wasted? Aren't I at the age where nothing I do will cement my future, or anyone else's for that matter? But I always thought that was naïve. Age is not an excuse for carelessness. If we don't try now, how will we maintain those habits in our adult lives? Yes, we have some leeway: from parents, from teachers, and their expectations rise by the year to give us staggered steps that we can crawl up slowly but surely and not slip on one because they're too high and wind up a sprawled mess on the bottom.

My father wasted his life and I don't want to do the same.

I also don't want to have feel like I've done this momentous thing, only to find it had crumbled behind me the moment I turned my back.

And so I stay. I stay in this digital world that never seemed to change and I fight Machindramon after Machindramon with WarGreymon, and he doesn't change either. We win and win again and the fights are the same. His stats rise but Machindramon's must rise as well (or else the digimon that masquerade as him) and no matter how much we demand our answers afterwards, we receive nothing but the same stock-standard scripted reply.

And I grow tired of it. Nobody else does. Not even WarGreymon who doesn't even seem to realise we're fighting the same face again and again like a phantom that haunts our dreams – or our nightmares. Maybe it doesn't haunt his dreams. He shows the appropriate amount of enthusiasm and dread at the final battle that comes again and again and I'm just tired of it all.

And when did my precious partner become so apathetic towards myself?

I remember when I first woke up here, muddled and sure I was still asleep but here was a Koromon bouncing around, who needed my care but was still patient enough to guide me through until I picked it up for myself: the digimon beyond what our V-pets could give us, and this world, and the enemy that lurked in who I had been called to defeat –

And here I am, being sent home without having a definitive victory against this enemy of mine, because as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I've already won.

I wonder what's happened. There's something. Definitely something. I've learned a lot about the digital world since I came. It's a computer more complex than any on earth but the principles are the same. It's how a human was able to hack into it remotely. The man who calls himself Analogman has done it. And I wonder if anyone like me has ever been called to the digital world like this before, to take care of another human who'd snuck through the firewalls and tries to destroy their way of life.

What do they even get out of it? Proving it's possible? If it's proving the existence of digimon then why don't they do just that? But digimon are just a game in our world, and a game in its infancy at that. And maybe that was why they called me, out of everyone in the world. There were few people who played with the V-pets and fewer still who obsessed with it.

But to have had a friend I can do such simple things for… Well, I shouldn't have to explain that. Why do some people treat their pets like their family? Why do some people live an entire will's worth of money and assets to their dear little dog when a dog can't make a withdrawal from a bank? There doesn't need to be a concrete explanation for everything… At least not while we're imperfect creatures in an imperfect world.

You'd think a world made entirely of data would make more sense.

It doesn't. And I'm not even computer-illiterate. I may as well be, after a fashion. It's too complex and maybe it's only like that because I can't understand its intricacies. I can't grasp it at all: this weird world. It's been like a game from start to finish and yet there's so much more invested in it – and then the ending is the sort that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and isn't really the ending at all.

Is it the seeds of a sequel? That's ridiculous. This isn't a game, no matter how much it acts the part.

Something deep inside the Digital World is screwed up and I've got no idea what to do about it.

I realise that eventually. I realise that and I just don't know what to do. Nobody helps. They're all stuck in that loop and at some point I accept that, if I want to accomplish anything now, I have to go back to the human world and work from there.

Even if this world collapses behind me, I have to go. I'm doing nothing at all anymore.

And so I go. Through the Digital Dive which is the tempting fruit from Eden's tree and the crown the saviour receives. I go, without knowing if I can really come back, if I'm leaving friends I may never get back – but that's a moot point, really. They're already gone, repeating the same lines over and over even when I announce I'm going back.

They're trapped in that endless loop, and I can only hope I can find the key to freeing them from this side – and they don't slip away like sand in the meantime.

But for now… I'm the one slipping away.

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'You're back early.'

That surprises me: the innocent way in which my mother says that, like I've only rushed straight home from school and not been in another world for months.

And, honestly, I'd forgotten too, what I'd left behind. I feel guilty for a moment – but then I register the flat tone and I remember why I'd cast it so easily aside.

I love my mother. Don't get me wrong. It's just… exhausting.

But it's also exhausting to hear the same lines again without pause.

Did I think I was going to escape it by leaving the digital world?

'Did something happen?'

Light curiosity, and only because I've burst into laughter in the middle of the kitchen.

'Nothing,' I say. But the truth is the answer is "everything and nothing" because there was an entire world I brought back to life, only to find the cause of its initial destruction has slipped through my fingers and left a cunning trap.

I've tried to escape this trap, but the others don't even know they're in it.

How cruel. How unfair.

But I'll find a way to save them. And I have my first hypothesis already.

Time flows differently between the worlds. I suspect it, because my mother isn't careless. She knows the motions but the feelings are covered in years' worth of scabs. It's easy enough to check though. All I have to do is go back.

Still, it might not matter at all because Analagmon is human… Or at least a monster who wears human skin. He can be any one of those people on the street. Any one of the anonymous people of the world.

Or he could be closer to home.

He could be the monster under the bed.

Honestly, that would be a nice irony. Then I can punch him in the face and kill two birds with a single stone. Maybe my mother will throw one of her pans at him. Give him a burn to match the ones that scale up her sleeves and not all of them are accidents in the kitchen.

One of my old teachers described an accident as an act of god. Anything a human does is not an accident, but a casualty.

How cruel we humans are, like that. Causing casualties. Causing calamities. But a God's finger can slip and wipe out the entire race and that's just an accident? Really, that's unfair. And absolving God of the blame.

But the weight of responsibility is heavy, especially when there's no-one to share it with. I drift to my room and my mother only makes a flat enquiry as to snacks and I give her an equally bland reply. I drop my bag on my bed with the same lack of gusto.

And my V-pet sits on my bed, with a pixelated WarGreymon moving about on the screen.

Something plummets inside some body cavity and I have to sit down. I should be relieved but instead I feel sick to my stomach – or is it my soul? I'm relieved; of course I'm relieved. But all of a sudden the weight is crashing down on top of me and I want to cry.

My mother is in my room suddenly and I wonder why. Oh, I've knocked down my chair and I'm on the floor now. That makes sense. Or it doesn't. It doesn't really matter because although she doesn't say anything, she sits on the floor with me and throws an arm over my shoulders and I lean into her and it's warm there. I can hear her heart beating faintly, covered in clothes and skin and muscle and bone and even a bit of fat, and I realise I've missed that terribly in the digital world where everyone has hearts that can't be seen except the Machindramon. Do they even have hearts at all? But even leaning against WarGreymon's chest-plate as he ran across the plains wasn't like this, even though I knew he loved me.

What was it that Jijimon said? _'Your love for Digimon in the real world appears to become power in this world.'_ Or something like that.

My love for digimon. And their love for me. It's why he digivolves, grows stronger – and comes out of his egg again every time I fail.

And even now, in the V-pet that's only a reflection of the him in the digital world…

'WarGreymon,' I mumble into my mother's breast.

I hear his voice in my head. 'Together, we can handle anything.' Comforting at first, until I realised he'd said it each and every time since we first defeated Machindramon and then it became a curse.

But that doesn't make it any less true… right?


End file.
